TI.

POPULATION ESTIMATES

To estimate the number of births, deaths and the magnitude of the Bikini
population after 30 years, information was used from the final draft of

the Marshall Islands Five Year Health Plan prepared by the Trust Territories'
Department of Health Services' Office of Health Planning and the Resources
Department.

The document is undated, but the presence of data from 1976

indicates that it must have been prepared in the period of 1977 to 1979
when we received it.

It was noted that there are apparent inconsistencies

among several of the different tables.

For example, Table III-1 gives

data for the Marshall Islands for the period 1955-1975 and Table III-5
gives data for the infant mortality rate for 1976.

In Table III-1, the

infant death rate per 1000 births for 1970 through 1975 is given as
28.3, 33.6, 25.4, 46.4, 21.]/and 37.0.

However, Table I1I-5 indicates

the infant mortality rate to be only 17.04.

We used the data of Table

III-1] in the following estimates; because it is more complete and it
provides a self-consistent set of data.

However, in view of the dis-

crepancies, the results can only be considered as approximations.

This

probably makes little real difference in view of the uncertainties in

the risk coefficients that were used.

There is also a bias built into

the data because of the inclusion of Ebye and Majuro in the overal]
Marshall Island rates.

This arises from the different death rates

(particularly infants) at these two locations.

In many respects the

population of Ebye and Majuro are quite dissimilar from the Bikini
population because they have the advantages and disadvantages of a more

technical environment.
For the estimates the last 5 or 6 year average of the data were used
because they are probably the most representative of current conditions.

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Rate of increase of the population has been about 3.8%/year.

Pwr

From this, the following were obtained:

Infant death rate is about 3.2% per birth.

Overall death rate is 0.54% per year.
Birth rate is 4.2% per year.

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